


and taking control

by NotRyanRoss



Series: Darkside!Verse (The Illegal Vampire Assassin Agency) [5]
Category: All Time Low, Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Music RPF, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Murder, Serial Killers, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 04:57:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7253404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotRyanRoss/pseuds/NotRyanRoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joshua Dun was in a lot of shit, Joshua Dun thought to himself. (Darkside!Verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and taking control

"Fuck," Josh said promptly as he looked at the scene.

Now, Joshua Dun had seen a lot of shit in his life. It probably all started when his parents and siblings were murdered by a vampire, and he was turned. But that had been years ago, and this ridiculously awful un-life he led hadn't gotten much better. And this was probably one of those ridiculously awful moments he kind of wanted to avoid. It wasn't just the four bodies of his friends sprawled on the ground, bloody and broken. It was the fact this had been done by so-called heroes. He made a frustrated noise and kicked a stray can of beans against the wall with one boot.

They hadn't deserved this. Alex and Jack, Rian and Zack. They hadn't deserved to be shredded like this, killed without an ounce of mercy. He looked down at the torn skin of Rian's throat and shuddered. Creature of the night or not, that wasn't okay. He let out air he didn't need to breathe and walked over to the balcony, opening the door. Immediately the smell of blood and pain was muted, and he breathed in deeply and leaned against the railing. Why did these things always have to happen? Was he cursed? That fucking serial killer was following him, he swore.

"I'm sorry."

Josh looked up and saw a flicker of gold irises, relaxed when he realised it was just Tyler. The older vampire slid off the brick wall and dropped to the ground silently, looking over at the scene in the living room. Josh watched as he leaned down to a crouch, touched one black-smeared finger to the blood on the ground. _Pretty,_ his mind said absently. Josh brushed it away. Tyler wasn't... that would never happen, not in this reality. Probably not in any reality.

"So much fear," Tyler said, voice nearly inaudible and sort of far away, almost. It was only when he said these sorts of things that Josh remembered how old he was. What he'd seen.

_Joshua sat crying amongst the bodies of his family. His mother's glassy eyes bore into him even in death, and it was frightening. The man standing above him ripped his teeth from his father's neck, dropping him with a thud. Josh scrambled backwards, eyes wide and fear buzzing down his spine. The man - the monster - was soaked in gore, eyes wild and hungry. A strange red design ran up one side of his face, like it had been branded. He chuckled, low and ominous, and Josh choked back a sob. He didn't want to die, cliche as it was. He wasn't ready._

_The man's fangs were sharp as they sheared through the flesh of his neck, painful and burning. Josh opened his mouth to cry out, but nothing came out. Just a mouthful of blood and bile, sharp and acrid against his tongue. His fingers scrabbled uselessly at the man's hands, at the claws digging into his collarbone. He struggled against the iron grip even as his legs went numb and the pain began shifting into a numb silence. Static blurred at the corners of his vision, and Josh wondered if the last thing he was going to see was the image of his mother's dead stare behind his eyelids._

_There was a sickening squelch and Josh thought,_ yeah, this is it. _Today's the day he gets his throat ripped out by a monster. What a day. He just wanted to play drums, maybe make some spaghetti._

_"Stupid fangchild," said a voice, high and cold._

_Josh realised he was lying on the ground and he opened his eyes to the monster's head being ripped from his body. Gold eyes met his and the new person threw the head aside, came closer. Josh wanted to run away, wanted to disappear into the carpet but he couldn't move at all. He couldn't even breathe. Cold fingers smoothed down across the burning pain in his neck, soothed it to a thin ache._

_"I'm sorry," the person said._

_"It's... okay," Josh managed to croak out before he died._

"...this one is still breathing," Tyler muttered, kneeling over Jack, fingers tracing a jagged knife wound.

Josh dashed over, skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees next to Jack. Bleary brown eyes met his, and Jack's fingers twitched.

"Can you turn him?"

"It's too late, Josh, I'm sorry."

"...didn't want to... be a vamp..."

"Jack," Josh said pathetically. Honestly, what was he supposed to say? His friend was _dying_ in front of him. Jack's fingers found their way into the hem of his shirt, twisted them into the fabric. Josh looked down at him, bit his lip hard.

"Jus'... can you... speed this up...?"

Josh raised wide eyes to Tyler, who didn't have much of a facial expression right now. He never did, when something bad happened. Josh could still feel the tense energy crackling off of him though. He needed clarification, though. Was Jack asking him to... kill him? He looked back down at Jack, who was pulling at Josh's shirt. Jack wriggled in his grasp weakly, enough that his neck was bared to Josh. Josh turned his panicked stare back to where Tyler had been, but there was just a space and the faint scent of oranges where before there had been a vampire. Josh looked back down at Jack, who was clearly in a lot of pain.

"Don't be... a pussy, man..."

Josh closed his eyes and let his fangs indent his lower lip, a drop of blood sluggishly trailing down his chin.

###

"How the fuck do people keep dying before I get to them. Every time," Josh bit out. "I'm a few steps behind a fucking serial killer who has a huge problem with me, clearly. He needs to stop fucking killing my friends. And why do they all want me to finish them off? It's like they enjoy being martyrs."

Tyler, a step behind him, remained silent.

Josh turned around, away from Hayley's limp figure sprawled on the couch in a mess of gore. Tyler shifted on his feet slightly now he was in sight, and his fingers tapped against his thigh nervously. Josh smeared the blood off of the corner of his mouth neatly, grimaced. Did death have to taste so good? Tyler blinked slowly, like one expected a cat to do, and the squares on his arms revolved slowly around each other in a dance on his skin.

"You should dye your hair," Tyler said.

"That might help cheer me up a little," Josh agreed, "but I still need to find this asshole."

"How about...red."

"Yeah, red's cool," Josh agreed again.

Tyler didn't smile, but the air felt less tense than it had before. Josh offered him a vague smile, and it wasn't returned, but he could tell Tyler had appreciated the gesture nonethelesss. Tyler turned to look out the window, out at the moonlight. It hit his tanned skin on an angle where half of his face was illuminated, skin an almost luminous pale, and the lit eye looked a normal, human brown, which was surprising in itself. Then the dark side showed a black slash of a mouth, sharp, predatory gold eyes, and jagged shadows instead of facial features. Josh startled back at the image, but then Tyler was gone again.

He wondered if one day, Tyler would actually stay with him instead of disappearing into the night. Something twinged in his chest, but he didn't act on it, didn't do anything at all, actually. There was a killer to be found, and hair to be dyed.

Anyway, he knew where Tyler's haunts were.

###

"Here to see Mikey Way," Josh said to the guy who'd peeked out when he knocked.

Amber eyes blinked up at him. "Dude, Josh!"

"Pete," he answered, accepting the suffocating hug he was dragged into. Man, vampires didn't smell, but Pete still used deodorant and it smelled like _ass_. Josh wished someone would tell him that. Hell, Mikey Way probably already had. Pete wasn't the kind of person to listen to other people's opinions. He detached himself from Josh and bounced away down the hall, and Josh sighed before following.

Pete left him at the door, saying something about ice cream and sopranos. Josh nodded and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

He eyed Mikey Way as he walked in. And no, he didn't look particularly scary with his smudged eyeliner and bedhair, but there was something in his expression that was hard. Josh kind of got that from Tyler sometimes. Mikey raised both eyebrows when he walked in, hands twitching on his desk.

"Come to turn yourself in?"

Josh frowned. "Turn myself in for what? I came here to ask if you'd seen Tyler. He hangs out here, right?"

"Tyler Joseph hasn't been here for weeks," Mikey answered, standing up. "And you can't pretend like you don't know, look at your hair."

"My hair...?"

"The red. Good at hiding those marks, right? How many people have you killed to keep yourself this collected? What, the death count's up to eleven now, right?"

The person murdering his friends. They'd killed eleven, counting Hayley. "Yeah, it is, but that wasn't m-"

" _Fuck_ ," Josh barked as he barely avoided a stake to the chest. Mikey Way moved ridiculously fast for a human. He shouldn't be able to take vampires by surprise. This was freaking impossible. Mikey didn't seem very fazed by his own agility, just hefting the stake gun on his shoulder at a better angle this time. Josh tensed up. The door behind him was shut - and if he turned his back to open it he was dead meat. The best way to survive this would be to distract Mikey. God, he'd just wanted to know where Tyler was, that was all.

"What markings," he started.

"The ones hidden by your dye. Nice job, by the way," Mikey replied, firing again. Josh dove to the left to avoid it, backed up against a chair.

"Why do you think I killed those people? They were my _friends_ ," Josh yelled.

"You're telling me you didn't drain them, Dun? Those weren't your bite marks?"

"..."

"Exactly."

"Fuck," Josh whispered. Then he turned around, looked at the wall.

There was a sword in range, large and clunky. It'd be nice to even the odds a little towards his favour with a nice big hunk of sharp metal. He kicked the wall with a foot. The sword shook in it's holder but didn't fall down, and Josh kicked it again, harder this time. He didn't think about his exposed leg until the stake sunk into his flesh with a sickening crunch of bone. "Fuck," he repeated vehemently - and God was he swearing a lot recently - and the sword wobbled and fell down with the hilt pointed towards him. He grabbed it quickly, moving his leg out of range and cringing at the sharp pain.

"I didn't kill anyone, Way!"

"Sure," Mikey said drily. "And I'm the Queen of E-"

A thunk sounded, and then something similar to a body dropping on the ground. Mikey didn't say anything more, and after a few seconds Josh peeked over the back of the couch. This could possibly kill him, but something had happened.

He was greeted with the sight of Tyler standing over an unconscious Mikey Way, eyes luminous and dark rectangles twirling gently on his neck. Josh grimaced at him, tried to stand and go over to him, but he wasn't walking anytime soon. The inch-wide piece of pine impaled through his skin made damn sure of that. He let go of the sword and twisted, tried to pull at the stake, but that only made him curse and let go like it was on fire. What a bad fucking idea that had been. He let out a long sigh and leaned back, thunked his head off the chair.

"You need to get up," Tyler said, voice low.

"I _can't_ ," Josh answered, a little peeved.

Tyler let out a sigh and leaned down, offering his hand to Josh. A few stray black blocks moved down his arm to join the paint. It was kind of like his body was playing Tetris, Josh thought absently. He grasped Tyler's hand, let him pull him up with almost no effort at all. He tried to find a balance between not putting all his weight on the other vampire and not falling over and failed miserably. Luckily, he had an iron grip on his waist, so he didn't fall over. Tyler looked at the doorway for a minute, then at the open window contemplatively.

"No," Josh said immediately.

"We can't just walk through the building," Tyler reasoned.

Josh sighed. "Fine. But you better explain _everything_."

Tyler didn't answer.

###

"They're probably going to track us here," Josh muttered as Tyler helped him into an armchair in his apartment. He'd seen his neighbour go past - Perry? Pat? - when they walked in, but there was no sign of anyone from Mikey's place yet. Tyler didn't say anything, hadn't said anything since he'd knocked out Mikey. Josh wondered if he was going to get more and more mute as time went on. He lived forever, right? Forever was a long time not to speak to anyone. Tyler seemed to be assessing Josh's comfort, then nodded to himself and leaned back on his heels. Josh tried to look unimpressed.

"Tyler, why does Mikey think I'm a murderer? And what's that shit about my hair?"

Tyler looked out the window.

"Tyler," Josh repeated.

Tyler looked back at him, something distinctly strange in his expression.

"I killed your friends," he said. "Kind of."

Tyler sat down gingerly on the arm rest of a nearby couch, didn't make eye contact again as he started speaking.

"When you were... a few months ago, you ran out of blood bags. You didn't notice that, you never think about drinking blood unless someone reminds you. I wasn't there, I had to talk about some issues with Gerard Way, and you... you attacked someone. It was just a person who won't be remembered, but it's..."

"What? I don't remember this."

"I know," Tyler answered. "I erased part of your memory. You didn't need to remember it. Don't need to remember it."

"But- who did I attack?"

"...it doesn't matter."

"Did I... did I kill them?"

Tyler didn't answer.

" _Dammit_ , Tyler," Josh seethed, suddenly angry. "Am I a fucking serial killer?"

" _No_ ," Tyler replied vehemently, eyes flickering like candlelight. "You're not a serial killer. No one's a serial killer. I just... it was the only way to keep you sane, you idiot!"

"What? Tyler, are you saying-"

"I didn't kill them. I _didn't_. They were going to die anyway. I wouldn't _ever_. If they were already at the brink of death all I had to do was make them want it, make them want - that. Josh, if you don't kill people now you're going to go _insane_. That's how it works for you now. You kill one person, you have to kill three, and four, and five."

Josh didn't answer.

"Hayley had lung cancer. Jack was going to have brain complications. The others - I just don't want you to leave me," Tyler said desperately. "If you don't drain people you're going to get worse, you're going to die. I've seen too many people go without me, Josh, you're all I've got left."

"...Tyler..."

"Dammit, Josh, why do you have to have a conscience," Tyler hissed, and suddenly Josh's hair was being tugged and he was pulled into a biting kiss. The edge of Tyler's fang grazed his lip and he sucked in a sharp breath, and then Tyler was across the room again, eyes wild.

"I'm going to cause a distraction," Tyler said. "Get out of here."

"Tyler, I-"

" _Go_ , Josh. Your leg's fine, get the fuck out of here before you get your head chopped off."

"I'm coming back, and we're going to talk about this," Josh said. He didn't know whether he meant the kiss or the apparent murder of his friends.

Tyler met his eyes, nodded, and then he was gone.

Josh started packing.


End file.
